cecil’s mark.

a song to set the scene // passion by milky chance

She looms over Cooper Landing, tall and formidable.

Taunting us with her views, she teases us with a good time, trapping unsuspecting innocents within her ragged landscape.

We curse ourselves whenever we’re foolish enough to be tempted back, yet eagerly insist upon conquering her every year once summer rolls onto the Peninsula.

Haunting and present is Cecil Rhode Mountain.

Drive through Cooper Landing, and I guarantee you cannot miss her.

Proudly placed in full view, Cecil’s statuesque peak is the pinnacle of my hiking season.

I can only hike her once a year though, she’s that fatiguing.

Driving up a steep unmarked dirt road, parking at a ROAD CLOSED gate, and finding a not noticeable trailhead always makes me question whether or not Cecil wants us there in the first place.

She is, after all, rather hard to find.

Climbing through thicc brush and over freshly fallen trees, we begin wondering if we are too early in the season to hike her.

Are we the first ones this year?

Our doubts are quickly answered when we come across the first (of many) snow patches.

Interrupting our follow of the trail, the snow doesn’t validate our too-early attempt at summiting, but rather confirms our timing, as we see fellow footprints meandering through the snow field.

And so we continue on.

Toeing our way through the exceptionally toasty snow (did I mention it was our first extraordinary summer’s day?), we inch our way up the mountain.

Looking to our left, we climb higher and higher over the striking glacial blue of the Kenai River winding its way through Cooper Landing.

To our right is an endless expanse of mountains, whose fellow snow capped peaks shine brightly back at us.

Above us, the sun beats down, reflecting off the snow and onto our poor un-sunscreened bodies; and below us, our hiking boots make slow and steady improvements up, up, up Cecil.

It’s a hike you curse when you’re on it. The kind of journey that always makes you question why you’d risk climbing something so damn steep.

Your knees hurt, your thighs hurt, your breath hurts, it all aches and groans and pops and moans.

But it’s also the kind of hike that takes your breath away, with unmatched views that are breathtaking and endless.

And to think that our bodies and their one-foot-in-front-of-the-other movements can conquer such a peak?

It’s a feeling like no other.

Which is why we return to her slopes year after year.

And on this particular, unseasonably hot 70 degree day in Alaska, Cecil leaves her mark in another way.

Remember those snow patches, and their red-hot reflective rays?

Did ya read the tiny detail about our un-sunscreened skin?

Well, late winter snow + AK sun = you guessed it: sunburned.

Who knew Cecil could leave her mark in more ways than one.